


The Sun and the Snow

by StrivingArtist



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: FIx It, I SWEAR ITS A FIX IT, M/M, Magical Realism, Memory, Probably not a one shot, Trust me as you once did, caused by Botfa EE grief, non linear, so very angsty for a fix it, weird timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 05:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5079922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrivingArtist/pseuds/StrivingArtist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had never made sense to him when he was a youngling, but he believed his father when told that some things need the freeze of a long winter to survive. So they brought inside the tender bulbs to keep them safe, but the strong ones were shifted and replanted in the cooling soil of November. </p><p>Bilbo had always thought that those were the most beautiful, those flowers that couldn’t be killed by the cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun and the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to [Meph](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mephestopheles/pseuds/mephestopheles)  , and to  [Andalusa](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Andalusa93) who were delightfully helpful as I wrote this far too fast.  
> The timeline is not linear, but you should be able to follow. If you feel like you need more of this, let me know. I'm undecided. But I needed this out of my skull.

 

In matter of fact, it was too chilly to be sitting on his bench with his pipe. The air wasn’t frosty any longer, but it wasn’t warm for all that they’d passed the line into spring. 

The wood of the bench wasn’t getting any warmer, but Bilbo didn’t mind. 

He had his pipe, and the glow of it, added to the warm smoke was more than enough to distract him from the memories of colder days. Gandalf had been quite right. He had come back, but he was not the same. He was another hobbit altogether in a great many ways, and most of them were not good for him. 

Knowing that didn’t change anything though. And if he went to the market either rather late or rather early now, it was just another symptom of his strangeness. The rest of Hobbiton didn’t need to know that it was his only hope to avoid having cloying relatives grasp his hand or clap his back. He knew it would happen eventually. It nearly had several times already, but so long as he could hold out, he planned to. He had no explanation why, but it mattered enormously to him.

Tiny buds of leaves were beginning to appear on the bushes and trees. Little pricks of green against the still grey skies. He had been back less than a month, and was glad to have made it back before winter lifted. 

First, it saved him having to fight off his relatives, who would surely have tried to take Bag End had he delayed. Second, it meant that he had come home to a place as empty and hollow as the hole in his chest. He didn’t return to a riot of color and a panoply of flowers. That would have been too much. Too jarring. 

So Bilbo was glad that he was able to be back in the Shire as the season turned, and as life began to grow anew. It was a new hope. A new chance at life and happiness. 

It would emerge slowly. 

Flecks of green and yellow, tiny buds on branches, and the ever astounding resilience of over-wintered bulbs. There were irises appearing, strong and tall, deep blue, with bright yellow that he knew would speckle them even if he couldn’t see it yet. He smiled at the ruffled tulips that would bloom soon. 

It had never made sense to him when he was a youngling, but he believed his father when told that some things need the freeze of a long winter to survive. So they brought inside the tender bulbs to keep them safe, but the strong ones were shifted and replanted in the cooling soil of November. 

Bilbo had always thought that those were the most beautiful, those flowers that couldn’t be killed by the cold. 

He bowed his head at the memory and drew another puff of smoke, releasing a long stream up into the sky. 

Yes, he had always loved those tulips and irises and daffodils, harbingers of spring, and eternally resilient. Like them, he had survived his own cold winter, and now, with luck, he would be able to grow again. He hoped it was true.

He licked his lips after, just on instinct, and closed his eyes on the sudden painful realization. His lips felt warm again.

 

* * *

 

 

To say that Thorin was unimpressed with their proposed burglar was similar to saying that there was a bit of gold in Erebor. While true, it did not scratch the surface of the extent of it. 

This was to be the most important action he would take in life. This was to be the quest that would restore the honor and glory of the line of Durin. This was to be the gift he would give to his kin, to Fíli and Kíli, so that they would never have to call themselves king of a place that had no value. 

He would see them given what was their due. 

And the wizard thought to have him babysit some whelp of a pathetic little halfling while he did it. Baggins had no skill with a weapon. No experience in the wild. No experience as a burglar, and Thorin would bet his braids on that. 

He also had no desire to travel with them. 

What had changed since the wizard had first contracted the halfling, Thorin did not know. Nor did he care. Had he seemed that he would be of some use to them, Thorin would have cajoled and encouraged until he agreed. It was how half of the companions were convinced. 

But he wanted nothing to do with Baggins. 

Nothing to do with any of the halflings that had never looked on dwarven traders, or dwarven craft, with less than disregard and impatience. 

There was nothing in this delicate green place that was of use to them. 

Save a night of full bellies and warm rooms. 

Grateful when the halfling walked away without signing the contract, he refocused on his goal, as he had done for years. The goals changed, but Thorin always had one to lead him onward. 

So it was strange that even as he began to hum the old song, his mind wandered with curiosity to the sort of person that could stand up and refuse the Wandering Wizard.

 

* * *

 

 

Hamfast’s smile when Bilbo knocked on the yellow door was broad and exultant. 

He cheered and shouted, and crowed that the others were going to have a stick in their craw over him coming back safe. 

Bilbo was still carrying enough things that he was able to dodge the gardener’s well intended hand with a shrugged gesture. Talking on and on, more words than Bilbo had heard from another in months, Hamfast fetched the keys and let Bilbo back into Bag End. 

It wasn’t even dusty. 

He’d taken proper care of it, that was abundantly clear. The kitchen was scrubbed and the pantry was bare, but that was understandable. None of it would have kept. The non perishable storage and the wine cellar were untouched. 

Bilbo dropped things onto tables and chairs and consciously slipped Sting off his belt to leave on his bed. He heard Hamfast come and go, stoking up a fire in the parlor and the kitchen, shouting that Bell would be happy to run to the market and help start restocking his stores. 

Maybe something of his quiet was telling for his longtime friend. 

After he’d rambled an hour away and Bilbo had responded hardly more than he had to, it trailed into silence. Hamfast followed Bilbo’s tour through his home, watching as a hand would glance over possessions, seeing him pick up a handkerchief from the table with a wry grin. Bilbo eventually wandered into the back garden, and looked at well tended beds. 

The plants were bare and little but the trimmed branches of rose bushes were visible. Bilbo didn’t mind. 

“I replanted the bulbs Mister Bilbo. I didn’t know if’n you’d be back, but it just weren’t right to skip it. That’ll have been back at the end of November. It was a late freeze this year. We had a couple get close, but it weren’t properly icy til then, and I was hoping to give you all the time I could to let you choose how they’d go. Since I didn’t hear from you, I just planted them all like we did the year before. So it should be just as you remember it Mister Bilbo, come spring that is.”

Hamfast cut himself off as Bilbo’s face fell. 

“Are you alright Mister Bilbo? Did your adventure not go the way you’d wish it?”

“I’m… fine, Hamfast, thank you.” Bilbo said eventually. At the doubting smirk, he continued, “I will be. Spring is coming after all.”

And Hamfast was nice enough not to comment on it again.

 

* * *

 

The largest part of his mind was well aware that the halfling was a fool and as likely to get himself killed as he was to get them all killed, and the difference was simply a matter of time. The traitorous part of his mind wanted to keep him alive to watch him discomfit the wizard. Which Baggins did with remarkable skill and regularity. Wit and tact were hardly Thorin’s strongest traits, he relied on disciplined intelligence and honesty above all else. 

It was the second voice that was most distraught when he looked up to see their burglar caught between two trolls, eyes wide, and about to die. And yet, it wasn’t a rebellion of his tender instincts that caused him to surrender. It was, truly, a rounded and deliberate decision. 

The battle had been going poorly, and they were likely to lose it. At best they could hope to have at least some of their company survive the encounter, at worst, they would all be killed. 

For that moment, that one moment, they were all alive, and unlikely to stay that way if the fight began anew. Seeing that their current tactic would find them no victory, he threw it, and his sword to the ground. 

It was not his soundest decision, but it was the only one available to him at the time, and he had no reason to question it as the trolls attempted to cook his Company over a fire too low to cause much harm to a dwarf’s thick skin. So he was thinking clearly as he tried to slip apart the knot of the sack he had been tossed into. Which meant that he had a chance to assess those near him. 

Most were fine, similarly trying to escape their canvas containments; Kili was gnawing on it like a pony. 

Their burglar however was preternaturally still. 

Had Thorin given it any thought, he would have expected that Baggins would have been trembling, weeping, crying in the face of his imminent demise. Instead he was watching the clearing, and the trees beyond, staring at the dwarves and the trolls as if solving some one or other of the riddles he was so fond of reciting. 

When he rose to call out, it wasn’t with a quaking plea for mercy. 

Thorin watched him straighten up, becoming more, becoming bigger as he challenged the trolls. That traitorous corner of his mind turned to him like the heat of the sun after long days spent underground. Unconsciously basking in it.

 

* * *

 

There was a time when he passed through these lands less than a year ago, when he had sat and chatted with the dwarves, laughing at Bofur’s jokes, and helping Fíli and Kíli plot their next prank. He had been part of a family then. A family that regularly underestimated their own strength. 

Standing on familiar ground, next to the pony he had purchased after clearing the mountains, he remembered only too well that there had been a time when he had been so carefree and joyful. Miserable too, naturally, but somewhere deep inside him he had been warm and content with them. They had blustered into his life and brightened up a corner of his chest he had not known had long been cold. They had been boisterous and loud, they had severely underestimated the value of a second breakfast, they had been too much of everything Hobbiton despised. And he had whined about it with all of his hobbity temper. 

The brooding of their leader in particular caused him to grumble unbecomingly. 

Standing there again, with a hole in his heart and a constantly resonating memory of ice against his fingers and his lips, he wanted them back. 

Foul moods, foul manners, foul beasts chasing them, all of it would be worth it to have them back. To have him back. Bilbo had underestimated how accustomed he was to having them about. To the casual touches, and the enthusiastic fists that caught his shoulder after he recited a particularly good story. 

He would respond in kind of course, trading back a punch that, even had he given it his all, would hardly have been felt. 

He climbed back onto the pony with that dark thought. 

Those cherished touches, those beloved memories, they were still carried with him, and he would never let them go. Did the company feel the same? Had the impact been mutual? Did they recall his presence? Or was he too small to have been more than a passing blow, never of consequence and already forgotten?

Bilbo dropped his head back and watched the snowflakes fall as the pony he had not bothered to name walked forward. 

That warm thing in his chest was gone now, replaced with an aching memory of loss. Snowflakes drifted and one landed over his lips. 

He was glad there was no one there to see him start to cry. 

 

* * *

 

His response to seeing their burglar clutching the edge of the cliff with terror in his eyes called out to the same voice that Thorin had spent the last weeks mercilessly suppressing. Try as he had, that corner of his mind, of his soul, reached towards the halfling at every opportunity. He had seen enough of the bright smiles and genuine laughs that he had grown greedy for them. 

He wanted them on some level he could not explain. But as he seemed incapable of provoking them himself, he had to settle for watching them at a distance. Thorin had. Extensively. Fascinated at them each time the halfling’s discontent broke and a broad grin replaced it. 

So when faced with the possibility of not seeing such happiness again, he responded without consideration. 

First, in a risky attempt to save his life. That action was met with the internal echo of his vowed irresponsibility for his safety. A declaration that had been proven several times over now to be a lie. 

Then he responded with the temper he was well known for. 

He snapped out what his mind had been telling him, reminding him, for weeks. That the halfling was far too soft and delicate to survive through their journey. A dead burglar would do them no good in their journey. This was an argument it was difficult to contest. 

Though, he had tried: justifying the halfling’s presence through roundabout and ridiculous means. 

Looking now at the bedraggled creature, trembling and clinging to the straps of his pack, he did not try again. 

The hobbit had no place amongst them. On this he was resolved. 

It was later, much later, laying awake in the sand of a fortuitous cave, that his doubts returned. He still had no question on the halfling’s unsuitability to their task. Baggins agreed on that count. No, what caught at him, what wormed beneath his skin and ate at him was the way the light had gone out of his voice. In the weeks he had listened to him speak with the others, he had heard steel and fire in his voice, even as he whined over the lack of tea and pillows. He had seen that strength, that glow, that heat inside him in every interaction. 

Now it was gone. 

Worse than gone because of the abuses Thorin had spat at him. That would have caused him guilt enough. This was a trait held in check. The halfing’s strongest, greatest trait, that indomitable will and determination was being curbed. 

Bofur’s words were meant to encourage and bolster, but only made the hobbit snap. 

It caused a flare of bright hope that he was bent not broken. 

Then the hobbit’s voice snuffed that out, and, truly dark, truly broken, he continued. 

Thorin could recognize the way that the hobbit had noticed his own strength, deemed it worthless and cast it aside. 

That hurt more than Thorin would have expected. 

He had not thought it would be possible to dampen Bilbo’s will. It had always been as certain and as addictive as the rising of the sun. 

No longer.

 

* * *

 

The mountain pass was all the worse for the season, but his luck held. A storm dropped enormous drifts of snow, but he was nearly down the eastern slope before it started. 

The foothills were largely spared, and while he was cold and tired as he trudged through the soft blanket of white, Bilbo paid little attention to it. Every night as he sat beside a fire, he would check his toes and hands for any sign of deep cold or damaged skin, in case he had failed to note an injury during the day. 

There never was anything more serious than scrapes and scratches. 

The cold was harder to explain. Even beside the fire, even holding hot stew in cradling hands, he still felt the ice at his fingers. The broth felt chilled even as it steamed in the spoon on his lips. He checked himself each night, but there was no frostbite. It wasn’t that kind of cold. 

“At least I still have that of you, though I am not sure I want it.” He whispered to the fire. 

Somewhere in the foothills, Bilbo’s long running internal conversation began to slip out. 

Not all of it. 

Not at first. 

Just a word or two to someone who would never hear it. A conversation held with a memory that he could only hope would forgive his boldness in saying everything he had ever wanted. 

By the time he passed by the path that would have taken him towards Rivendell, Bilbo was contentedly spending his days speaking with Thorin’s memory. He told him stories and jokes, posed riddles and chuckled at a memory he only had to half invent of Thorin’s scowl whenever the riddle was too flowery for him to know it. He knew there was no one there. He knew that no one answered him as he spoke, but the exercise helped. 

So he continued. 

And he walked ever forward through the winter, drawn on toward the glimmering hope of home as surely as Thorin had led them to Erebor. 

 

* * *

 

Thorin had a most unfortunate habit of keeping to himself thoughts which, by all right, he should have said to the subjects of those thoughts. But between his rearing as a prince training him to hold his tongue, and his tendency to say things in such a way as to cause offense when none was meant, he stayed silent. 

So he had only rarely told his sister how dearly he held her. He did not tell her, nor Dwalin, nor Balin that they were the sole reasons he was able to keep himself afloat when his life fell to darkness after Azanulbizar. 

He did not tell them that it was their repetitions of his greater qualities that kept him from agreeing to deception and thievery. It would have helped to keep his people in a better situation. Fuller bellies, warmer coats, and so easy to trade away the reputation of the dwarves, long upheld as unimpeachable. Many of his kind did. Many of the dwarves of Erebor were forced to do so. 

 But Thorin, with his sister’s vows of his honor and his worth playing as his private chorus, accepted the poor wages, and continued to produce the work he would have for thrice the silver. He could not bring himself to punish those that did. That was the allowance of his temptation. 

Dis knew, she always knew what he thought, but it hurt that he had never said to her how much she had done for him.

He had never told Fili and Kili that while he called them his sister sons, or, in khuzdul, his ingadan, in his heart, they were his children, and they were more precious to him than any treasure. That it was their hopes for a future, their blank wondering when Erebor— their birthright— was mentioned, that largely decided him to reclaim it. He would not allow them to live without their rightful kingdom.

He had never told them that Fili’s gold curls and tiny strong hand curling around his thumb as he drifted to sleep was the memory he turned to in order to hold strong as he labored as a blacksmith. He had not told them that there was a winter he returned to Ered Luin, robbed of the season’s earnings a few leagues from home, prepared to vanish in the wilderness and remove himself from the family. To stop himself being a burden and a waste. He had never told them that it was seeing them, bright and smiling, carrying pine boughs in from the forest, snow glittering in their hair, that changed his mind. That the way his boys had run to him, tackling him into the snow that gave him hope, and made it impossible for him to leave. He never told them that the way they had raised their chins and volunteered to go hunting with him every day to keep them fed through the winter was a memory he saw each time they made a promise. It had been the first, and silly as they often were, that had been the start of them growing up. All of thirty, and grown dwarves in spirit. 

He had never said it to them. 

The company that joined him had never been told how he valued them. He had never truly said that their sacrifice was known and cherished. He didn’t tell them that he knew what each had left behind to come with him, nor did they know his private vows to repay each of them, and keep them safe. 

Thorin did not tell others what he thought, no matter how deep his emotions ran. Often this led them to think that he did not feel much. It could not have been more wrong. 

So, as much as he hated himself for the failing, it was unsurprising that he was unable to tell Bilbo how much he valued him. 

Cherished him. 

Loved him. 

Any creature that would snap back at Tharkun, that would tackle an orc without training, that would stand up against a superior enemy, deserved a second examination, and while Thorin was late in his willingness to do so, once he had, he was doomed. It was the night after the Carrock, with Bilbo shivering, that he had offered to share his fur coat. He spent more of that night holding him and re-examining everything the hobbit had done for them so far, than he spent sleeping. 

By the time dawn broke, he was exhausted still, but felt more content than he ever had in life. 

Love did that.

Not that he said anything about it. 

He tried to show it. Talking to him, listening to him, showing him he was trusted and one of them. He used khuzdul and when Bilbo furrowed his brow, wanting to know what had been said, but knowing it was forbidden, Thorin translated. 

That first startled, delighted grin, prompted by defining one of Thorin’s favorite slurs for the elves, still warmed his chest. 

Through the forest, through the dungeons, he held onto his secret, wanting to make clear what he felt, but having neither the words, nor the courage to do so. 

 

* * *

 

Bilbo stood outside the gate into Beorn’s home, not sure why he had even come this close. None of the animals had noticed yet, which was a mercy. 

He had not thought about what stopping here would mean. He had not considered the shape changer’s proclivity to scoop Bilbo up and carry him around. Not until now that is. 

There wouldn’t be any stopping it. 

Not once Beorn saw him. If Beorn was even there. And that wasn’t certain. Beorn had still been in Erebor when Bilbo left, but could travel much faster, and, didn’t seem to like the company of so many around him. 

He wouldn’t go in if Beorn wasn’t there. 

If Beorn was there then Beorn would clap him on the back, carry him on a shoulder, and then... Then the last person Bilbo touched would never again be Thorin because Thorin was dead and buried and there would never be a way to repair that loss.

It wasn’t good, he knew that, he knew as sure as anything, that clinging to the thought like this wasn’t going to do him any favors. But even thinking about erasing the memory of Thorin’s skin made him shake. 

He didn’t really have enough supplies, not to cross the mountains easily; but if he was cautious, and he hurried, and he didn’t get caught in a snowstorm, he could reach Eriador before the worst of the snows in February. 

Bilbo tucked the cloak a little tighter around himself, and turned away from the hedge. 

As he walked, his fingers traced over his own lips, remembering and focusing until the cold of the air no longer mattered, and he could let himself have his delusion. A memory of warmth that he’d never known. A false memory, since his lips were still chilled, but a memory he clung to all the same.  

He thought of that, and of one foot, then the other. Nothing else.

 

* * *

 

The forest of Mirkwood had been a horrific experience, a blend of chaos, imminent starvation and attacks by giant spiders. 

It was, in comparison to his time in the dungeons of the Elven king, utopic. 

The first long weeks not knowing if his Company was living or dead was awful enough. Then Bilbo, invisible through the use of a magic trinket, had appeared and promised they were well. That his boys were alive and being as difficult as possible. That the Company had kept their silence about their true purpose. 

Bilbo came back each day at Thorin’s request, sometimes slipping off his ring as they spoke in hushed whispers. Each time he did he seemed paler, frailer, scraped thin by the constant threat of discovery and the pressure of the Company’s captivity. 

In time, Thorin began insisting that Bilbo sleep beside his cell door. There at least he could watch over him, let him relax fully and get the rest he needed. 

The hobbit resisted, not wanting to endanger Thorin should Bilbo be discovered, then insisting on wearing his ring. Thorin argued him down on both points. 

Bilbo slept poorly. 

He tossed and shifted, and Thorin worried that they would not find an escape before they had asked too much and the steel will of the hobbit had crumbled. He worried that he was asking too much, expecting too much. That Bilbo was persisting only out of a need to disprove Thorin’s initial assumptions. That this would see him killed. 

In the darkest of those thoughts, as he watched Bilbo frown in his dreams, he considered it would be best to take Thranduil’s offer and barter away whatever was asked of him. 

A strand of hair fell into Bilbo’s face. It had grown long in Mirkwood. 

He brushed it aside without thinking, not even noticing he had slipped his arm between the bars. Bilbo turned toward his hand and let out a sound that was nearly a sigh. 

But still asleep. 

Reluctant only because they had never had the same easy camaraderie as the rest of the company, Thorin ceased. 

When the frown returned, his fingers resumed, lightly brushing through curls. 

A sleep muddled smile spread across Bilbo’s face, and Thorin savored the feel of hair against his calluses, not thinking he would have such a chance ever again. 

 

* * *

 

It was easy enough. 

One step. Then another. Then another. 

When a small pack of orcs appeared on the edge of the forest, Bilbo slipped on his ring and kept walking, not bothering to fight them. It was cowardly. He knew that. But it was his only recourse. He had to keep walking.

As long as he was walking, he didn't have to think about the memory and the way his hands clutched at random, looking for forge-warm skin and the comfort it would carry. Looking for things that they would never find again. 

 

* * *

 

Bilbo lay ill on a bartered bed in Laketown. 

The Master of the town had held Thorin captive with his unctuous assistant long into the night, and most of the Company was a bed by the time he returned. Oin’s head popped up when Thorin and the sons of Fundin entered the living room.

Muttering about it being as good a time as any to check, their healer began hauling himself up to make for the stairs. 

Thorin pressed him back to the chair, and offered to check their hobbit. 

He stood in the room for long minutes, hoping that this illness would pass quickly and he would be able to tell Bilbo of the meeting. He had done his best to keep a civil tongue in his head, and held back several excellent insults that he now wanted to share. They were sure to earn him that bright smile he loved so much. 

Bilbo was their burglar, but Thorin was the thief that night. 

He stole Bilbo’s hand and rubbed circles with his thumb, marveling at how small and light he was. Bilbo never seemed small when he was awake and running about, saving them, defending them, vouching for them. He was a force of the world. Proud and tall and immovable. And, most often, treating Thorin to a level of backtalk that no dwarf would dare.  

He held his hand, and tried to reconcile his grand deeds with his petite frame. He stole that contact and savored it. 

Then, knowing Bilbo was well and truly asleep— he had not even responded with Thorin lifted his hand— he leaned over a stole a kiss. 

Inappropriate, but unstoppable. 

He had wanted to since the Carrock. 

Bilbo, even in sleep, pressed into him. Thorin fair glowed at the thought that perhaps Bilbo might be amenable to the idea of being loved by a dwarf king. The feeling of soft heated skin centered him, calming him, passing through him, spreading that warmth like a sip of hot cider in a winter night. 

When he sat up and Bilbo shifted, he was terrified to think his theft was known. But Bilbo shifted again, and again, and after too long a moment enjoying being alone with him, Thorin rose to tell Óin that their burglar was now running a fever. 

 

* * *

Bilbo stood before the forest of Mirkwood. Imposing, awful, rank with memory and in so many ways exactly as it had been. 

Except, as Bilbo stepped onto the path and began, it was different, because now he was alone. Halfway across the forest he realized he had not felt the oppressive crush of watchers beneath the trees. He had not felt the malevolence it had held before. 

He also realized that throughout the days of walking with one eye ever watching the path, his lips had stayed cold, and his fingers still tingled. 

And painful as the reminder was, he did not want it to fade.

 

* * *

 

There was a mantra pounding in his mind as he watched Bilbo vanish into the mountain. Over and over again he heard it, begging, pleading that Bilbo be safe. That he come back. That was the beat of the repetition. Beneath it was the reminder that the quest was bigger than any one of them. That this was a matter of reclaiming the mountain for all their people and if the cost was a single life, the trade was more than fair. The twinned reminders fought against each other, neither allowing the other to be forgotten. 

So Thorin waited outside the hidden door and breathed, slowly, deeply, shoving down his instinct and his fear. Lashing out at Balin with words sharper than her felt, knowing that if he spoke the truth, he would never be able to deny it again. Never be able to exist without saying it every day through the rest of his life. 

He bit at his lips, and the heat that flooded them in the wake of pain returned him to the memory of the press of Bilbo’s. Which sent him yet further into anxious conflict. 

 He could not stop it, he could not fix it, he could not help. He knew that. But the words unspoken caught on his tongue and made him nearly dizzy with the force of keeping them silent. 

There was moment, standing in the night, reliving the horror of Smaug’s attack in his youth, when he was resolved. He and the rest of the Company would run, find safety. Now that they knew that the dragon lived, they could not defeat him. He had known that for months. 

Survival mattered. 

He could not sacrifice his near sons to the beast just to ameliorate his own tortured soul. 

They would retreat, they would live, and they would return in forces great enough to fell the creature. 

They would live. 

And Bilbo would die. 

No matter how long he had been taught to place the needs of his people before his own. No matter how he told himself as he greeted each dawning sun of this quest that their goal must be the priority. No matter that he almost felt he could feel his forebear’s disapproval for his hesitation, he could not accept that. 

Unspoken as they were, Bilbo could not have known what he was to Thorin, but Thorin knew. For that, if nothing else, he could not leave Bilbo to his fate. 

 

* * *

 

Later, many hours later, somewhere outside of Erebor, when Bilbo came back to himself, he didn’t remember finding his pack, or filling it with cram and waybread. He didn’t know how he slipped past guards and dozing dwarves to reclaim his few things without being cornered and hugged by someone who thought he seemed to need it. 

He didn’t actually recall writing a note, though he remembered sneaking into the chamber that should have been Thorin’s and leaving it for Fili and Kili to find. 

Truly, he wasn’t aware of where he was until the guard from Dale hailed him. 

Bard would want to speak to him, to thank him properly the guard said. So when Bilbo dutifully promised to wait for the new king to be found, he was lying. As soon as the man and his makeshift crutch vanished around a tent, Bilbo kept walking. 

Thinking beyond that, thinking at all, led him back each time to the corpse that would be buried today. To the body that was once Thorin Oakenshield. And that wasn’t something he could stand. So he lifted his feet, and he walked. 

 

* * *

 

There was very little that Thorin knew to be true while he was inside Erebor. His world was blurred, fading in and out as if he was drunk, or drugged, or wounded. He could see the gold. It was clear and bright in the miasma of his mind. 

Seeing his boys. That was clear. Thinking them dead of dragon fire because Thorin had not kept them close, they shone in the room, sharp and vital. 

Bilbo was always clear. 

Where the others were surrounded by shadows, dismissed as inconsequential, wrapped in clouds of confusion, Bilbo was simply himself. He was still smiling, still helping, still by his side. 

He had to be kept safe. 

Bilbo slept little, and what he got was troubled. Troubled by threats of war and violence and theft. Troubled by the betrayal that Thorin felt just as keenly. He tossed and fidgeted, waking and adjusting time and again in his rest. 

Except when Thorin sat with him. 

After a few days, when Thorin had convinced Bilbo to sleep near, then in the Treasury itself, he was able to help. 

Leaving the gold— that wasn’t possible, that wasn’t safe. But with Bilbo there he could do both. He guarded the gold of his forefathers, kept it safe. And he knelt on the pile of furs, and stroked his fingers through Bilbo’s curls. 

It was only a minor theft. Just a little thing. And it brought Bilbo comfort. There could be no wrong in it. 

He had never thought of Bilbo’s hair as golden. It wasn't. It never had been. In the light of the treasury it glowed and glittered. Fine strands of precious precious gold curling over his fingers, catching on the rings adorning his hand. 

It settled him. The same warmth permeated him, and he felt right. 

He had the mountain. He had the gold. He had Bilbo. 

There could be no wrong. 

* * *

 

 

When he woke it was still true. 

The candles had sputtered and died, and Thorin was still dead, still cold when Bilbo rose to look at him. 

His headache was nearly blinding now, a constant sear in his face and his skull.

No one had come down, and as he could no longer hear the feast above, he must have slept the night through. 

Not nearly enough to raise a smile, but it did gladden him that no one had touched him. He could still recall Thorin’s touch, Thorin’s skin, Thorin’s blood on his fingers beneath his hands. The tingle of his hands grew stronger, and he settled a palm on Thorin’s chest.

He knew he ought to speak, and find a way to say goodbye.

That would force him to admit it though.

So Bilbo let his fingers stay, tried to memorize this as fact, looking to convince himself that it was real, his hopes were pointless, and tried to convince himself of a greater lie. That he himself would survive the loss.

Perhaps it was best that they had never been more than companions and friends. If they had crossed that line, leaving now would destroy him. It would not be a memory and fizz in the tips of his fingers that echoed Thorin’s touch, it would be his lips, it would be every inch of him. If they had crossed that line, there wouldn’t be an inch of his body that Bilbo wouldn’t know. There wouldn’t be an inch that Thorin wouldn’t have explored. He was nothing if not thorough. 

It was a thought he should not have allowed. He yearned to let his lips know that touch, longed to have that memory, even with it tainted by icy stillness and death. 

It was better than to have never known. 

Before he could doubt, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to Thorin’s hand. Cold and disturbingly yielding. But it was _Thorin_ , and now that the instinct had been allowed it could not be stopped. He had never kissed anyone with a beard, and never would again.

He would never kiss anyone again.

Climbing nearly onto the bier was ungraceful, and slowed by the pain in his head. His body ached from his vigil on the floor. He was stiff, and rigid, both physically and emotionally.  

He was beyond those worries though. 

Tentatively, as if someone would appear and take offense at his actions, he kissed him. 

Then he wept, half laying over him, hands wrapped in the finery they insisted he be dressed in for his burial. There was no energy to support his tears. Bilbo was too far gone to fall as deeply into sorrow as he had the night before, so he forced himself to stand. He rose as soon as his mind could handle a coherent thought, and straightened what he had mussed on the fallen king. 

On the dead king.

Shaking, he set the braids back into place, shifted the tunic to a proper layout, and nodded. He walked away before his resolve could fail him again. 

Lips alternating between the sensation of frigid skin and the false memory of warmth and soft breath, he forced himself to admit that it was over. That though he would be buried in the winter, like the bulbs in his distant garden, Thorin would not emerge in the spring. 

He took the steps one at a time as he walked away, focused wholly on the lifting of his feet, unable to think further than that lest he turn back and sob once more.

 

* * *

 

Everything was wrong. 

Bilbo had betrayed him. 

The burglar. The thief, the wretch. The filth. 

And still he was bright and sharp, jarring against the muted clouds around the others. 

Nothing mattered but him, but the betrayal. 

His throat was soft, innocent as his soul was not. Hot, and alive and traitorous. The pulse below his hand hammered, and he could feel the thief struggling for air, trying to grab Thorin’s chest and keep himself safe as he was held above his doom. 

Tender and weak, Thorin could have broken him in half without using a fraction of his strength. 

The wizard stopped him. 

Wide eyed once again, breathing in heavy gulps, the thief stood before him. The other shapes reached for him, ready to pull him away, removing him from sight or finishing what Thorin had begun he did not know. He did not care. Everything about him was faded away except the glints of gold he wore. Even Bilbo was now part of the mass of grey. 

Nothing but the gold mattered. 

He pronounced judgement, and the thief was sentenced to never return on pain of death. 

One of the blurred shapes reached out frantically from the mass, and blazed a fiery trail over his cheek where skin touched skin. 

Two lines, bright white and important, oh so important, were drawn on his flesh by gentle fingers. Long before he could think, or explain them, or consider them, the shapes were gone, and a war begun. 

 

* * *

 

The funeral was large, and public. 

Of course it was. 

Thorin was the heir of the line of Durin. The dwarves deserved to bid him farewell. Dain and his people stood in row upon row, staring down with lit torches, honoring the fallen king. The company surrounded their bier, trembling and shaking with tears they held back with varied success. Gandalf spoke of his greatness, and his accomplishments. Fili spoke of his uncle's dream, of Erebor restored, of the future and the great hopes of the dwarves. 

Bilbo stayed silent throughout. He did not move, and had flinched away, time and again when the dwarves of the company tried to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder or his back. 

He went as far as to step back, closer to the edge to avoid Bofur’s concern. He still could not meet anyone's eye. He could not bear another to touch him.

He had treated his head wound in a quiet corner of the camp before they had returned to Erebor. The elven healer had tried, but when Bilbo refused for the fifth time, he had left the supplies and exited with an unelven scoff. 

So Bilbo stood there, with the mournful singing of the dwarves echoing around him as they laid their king to rest. Through it all, Bilbo stared at the glimmer of the Arkenstone upon his chest. He hated it. Hated Bard for returning it. Hated Fili for placing it there. Hated himself for the decisions he had made. Hated everything. 

If Balin had not tried to encourage him up to the feast that was set to begin, he might not have noticed that the others had departed. 

But again, he flinched away. 

Balin at least understood.

He didn't try again, and his eyes held no judgement. Balin just stepped back again and invited him up to the feast.

"No, thank you." his voice rasped, largely unused for the last few days, and dry from emotion. "I’d like to…” he trailed off, unsure what it was he even wanted. 

So Balin left. 

And Bilbo waited until the echo of his steps was gone. Until there was no sound disturbing the air except the faintest whisper of the festivities above. 

They were _celebrating_. The company right there with them. They had mourned, they had wept, and they were now far above, shouting of his deeds, telling tales of the Quest. Recounting his greatness and helping him to pass into legend, as they said. 

And Bilbo wanted nothing to do with it. 

He took the first step towards Thorin, towards the body, without knowing it. His body just began to move, desperate for contact again, hoping and praying that it was all some terrible mistake. He stood beside him, beside his vibrant ,impassioned dwarf, the brightest influence in his life and one that had been snuffed out too soon. 

His hand raised, he reached, and stopped himself, letting his hand catch on the stone. It was cold, and stayed cold no matter how long he waited there, his hand against marble that never warmed. 

It wasn't right. They had survived so much, surmounted such obstacles, it didn't make any sense anymore. Months of travel, and Bilbo had worried and fretted and fussed about the dwarves dying. He had feared they'd blow off a mountainside. He had worried about starvation, he had woken shaking from nightmares where the eagles never came. Even as he ran up the hill, he hadn't thought that this would kill Thorin. Not in battle, not like this. 

It was _Thorin_. 

He was too strong, too skilled. He could never fall to Azog. Bilbo had reached them in time to stop the closing of the trap. How Thorin had found himself fighting alone against the pale orc was beyond him. 

Why was even further. 

The little traitorous core of Bilbo whispered a question he didn't want to consider. 

Why had Thorin left him? 

He had been just beside him helping to fight when he when he was struck and knocked into darkness. 

Why had he left him? 

The only answer that came back was that what Bilbo felt was unrequited. That Thorin had spoken truly. He wanted to part in friendship. 

Friendship.

Well. It did not change what Bilbo felt. Would feel. 

Would always feel.

He whimpered, and finally moved his hand to touch Thorin’s arm. 

For just a moment his mind tricked him. He thought, just as his fingers set over the detailed leather, that there was a flare of life in the skin below. A glow of the vibrance and heat he had come to love. A brief hope that there might be something of Thorin just waiting to burst forth and grow. 

But as he left his fingers there, as the freezing, clammy, awful feeling failed to dissipate. As it grew worse, he slumped forward, tightening his fingers onto the braid he had spent months wanting to touch, to know, to braid himself while Thorin turned that gorgeous, brilliant smile to him. 

That he never got to touch before. 

Before the Misty Mountains, Thorin hadn’t so much as let their hands brush together. After hauling him up from the edge of the cliff, after the embrace on the Carrock, after the night spent huddled against his side before they reached Beorn’s, the touches hadn’t stopped

Never spoken of, never explained, and never quite like the easy camaraderie shared between the rest of the company. It was different.

Strained for some reason he had never grasped.

What that meant, he didn’t know. 

Now he never would, and it was that thought that broke the last of Bilbo’s control.

"No. no. Not this. please Thorin, not this. Please, you can’t be gone. You can’t--" his voice cracked at the same time his face fell against Thorin’s chest. "No, no, please, Thorin, You can’t, can’t, please don’t" _leave me_ "I never got to say" _I love you_ "I never, we never had a chance to" _even try_ "Thorin, no," _I love you_ "please no, not this, don’t,” _leave me_ “don't be" _dead_.

Dead.

He wept long, standing there beside Thorin in the tombs, sobs wracking his body, and he struggled to keep quiet. It failed, but he could not stand the thought of anyone else coming back down, of interrupting this, of touching Thorin, of touching him and trying to comfort and console the open yawning chasm in his chest. There was no consolation. And he would rather not have anyone see him. 

His face hurt from the force of it before he succumbed to exhaustion. His head ached, and his stomach rolled. He sank down, leaning against the cold stone, cold as Thorin, and fell asleep, Pouring every ounce of hope into the thought he’d wake and find it wasn’t true.

 

* * *

 

 Thorin knew that the decision was irrational. He knew that it was going to see him dead before the next sun rose. 

He knew, and he chased the pale orc in spite of that. 

He had seen Bilbo fall. He had seen the loose crash of limbs as an orc passed the hobbit. 

He saw him fall. 

Bilbo, his Bilbo, his wonderful beloved, his incredible hobbit, who had come to find them, who had sprinted across the ice the moment he realized the boys were on the other side. Who had come to save him, to fight at his side and whose eyes had held nothing but joyful relief when Thorin could not stop the reverent declaration of his name. 

He had retrieved Fíli and Kíli, running back with confidence and a smile, unpursued and safe. 

Bilbo, who had run off to help his boys without giving warning, perhaps knowing that Thorin wouldn’t have allowed it if he had asked. Who had stood strong with the others as a force of Gundabad orcs had crested the rise and fallen upon them. Who had flung rocks with an accuracy that caused a distant corner of his mind to recall the comment about conkers. Who had drawn his elven blade and glowed with intensity as he waited for them, sparing only a moment to offer an encouraging smile to Thorin. 

And now Thorin had watched him fall. 

Dwalin was with the boys, and the three were across the tower, out of Thorin’s range fighting fiercely. They would not notice his action until it was too late to stop him. 

Azog the Defiler was standing on the ice, mute challenge writ in the beast’s outstretched arms, armored and wielding a curved blade and a stone mace. It was not his hand that had slain Bilbo, that orc lay dead already, separated from his head by Thorin’s blade. This was Azog’s army, and this was his will. The pale orc had come to erase the line of Durin and would never cease his efforts so long as he yet breathed. 

For the sake of his boys, and the future they deserved, for the crimes he had committed, for the way that he had failed his Company, fallen to madness, for the harms he had tried to bring down on Bilbo’s head, he would do this. 

He would end the pale orc. 

And if the cost of the deed was his own life, it would be a price he would gladly pay. 

He could only hope that his maker would show him mercy, and permit him to pass apologies to his beloved, through his wife if he were not permitted to see him himself.  

So he ran, and fell into battle with all the impassioned hatred of his soul driving him onwards. 

There would be no miraculous save this time. There was no hobbit to save him should this action fail. Thorin felt himself resolve then, not to allow it. He pressed in with the speed of his charge behind him, and they rushed toward their final reckoning. 

Blows were traded and blocked. Thorin was knocked back and confronted with another orc while Azog laughed darkly at the sight. He was cast down on ice, and the orc snapped his blade from the hilt with a heavy boot. 

The knock of the war hammer threw him back, and his world blurred in confusion as the beast rose high above him, ready to kill him. Shame and fury warred in his chest. He watched, unable to defend himself or hardly respond. But a sword sprouted from its chest and it fell. 

Thorin rose with Orcrist in hand, and he felt, deep within, a glow begin to burn. The same light that he had turned to in Bilbo, the way that the hobbit had radiated hope and determination, it was mirrored in his chest as he stalked back to Azog, intent in a way that his reckless charge before had not been. He had a certainty of his fate, and a certainty of his purpose that guided him. The light that Bilbo had provided echoed and warmed him as this new force of will kept him centered. 

From there, the battle was new. 

He fought with a lifetime of skill behind him and let Azog’s confidence prove his undoing. As eagles soared overhead, he was distracted, and Thorin took the chance to end him. 

Following his body beneath the ice was no more optional that facing him in the first place. He had to see, he had to know, he had to be sure that he was dead. That his boys would be safe. 

When the blade pierced his foot, it was almost expected. Azog was vermin, and they are always hard to kill. 

Thorin had never been gifted with the skill to speak his feelings. He had never had the capacity that so many did to tell someone and make them understand the depth of his love. He could only hope that his deeds would serve as proof to his boys. 

Ice at his back and a fire in his heart, Thorin strained to hold the wicked blade from piercing his chest. It was a lost fight, hopeless from the moment the mountainous orc had settled his weight above him. The strength of dwarves was legendary, but would not be able to overcome this. In the end it was a simple decision. He had known as he took that first step away from Bilbo’s body that he would not see the dawn. He had known that this fight would be his end. 

Pain still sheared him nearly apart as he moved Orcrist and let Azog think the battle was won. 

There was no time to pause, no chance to gloat or triumph as he stabbed. He flung himself up, pain ignored for now as he struck again, stabbing and pinning the enemy of his line to the ice, dead, and certainly so this time. 

He breathed slowly, the fire of his fight fading now that it was done, and he began to walk away. Away from the corpse, away from the pain of seeing Bilbo’s body. Away from it all, and to the edge of the waterfall. There he could look out at the symbol of it all. At the goal he had held for more than a century. 

Erebor reclaimed, for the sake of his boys. His precious boys. 

They lived. He knew it without seeing them, knew it deep in his chest. His boys had lived, and the battle was won, and they would finally have what they deserved. 

He did not know he had fallen until the feel of the ice below him had managed to travel through the many layers he wore. 

Resignation settled over him, knowing that there was no healer in middle earth capable of keeping him from death now. He could feel the fluid in his lung. He could feel the way his world went distant and saw bursts of sparkles in the sky above as his body began to fail. 

This was his fate as surely as Erebor’s future glory was Fili’s. 

The cold crept in around him and he braced himself with the knowledge that he would soon see his kin. Frerin and his father. Fundin. His mother. And with Azog dead at last, he could face them tall and proud of what he had done in this life. He could look at them with his chin held high and tell them stories of the quest. Of the deeds of their descendants. 

He could tell them of a hobbit. A creature grander than his size, who would remain forever the strongest, bravest creature he had ever known in life or story or song. 

The ice stung and seemed to keep him in this world, even as he felt blood flowing down his chest, colder than it should have been. 

Then a voice he could not have hoped to hear again called out his name and Bilbo was there. 

There was blood on his brow and quivering shake in his hands, but he sounded so sure, so confident as he told Thorin that all would be well. 

It was a chance unlooked for, a blessing unexpected. 

And Thorin knew he could not let it pass. He had no right to speak aloud the things he truly wished to say. He had no right to Bilbo’s love now. He had no right to look at that brave sweet face and confess love. But he had to take this chance to beg for forgiveness, and to tell him some fragment of what Bilbo meant to him. 

Friendship. 

He called it friendship even as the word tasted false on his tongue and he saw tears rise in Bilbo’s eyes. He called friendship the connection that had burned so bright it scared him. 

Friendship for the bond that even now warmed him with every point of contact from his beloved hobbit. He should have said it sooner, he should have shouted it from the mountainside, he should have whispered it against a shared pillow. 

Too many things that he should have done, and now, there was no point to them. No chance that he would see his hobbit again. Their eternal rests did not, would not, could not ever collide. He had lost his opportunity, and would never again feel this warmth. 

Even with Bilbo’s hand clutching his, even with his face brought so close that his breath was heated on his cheek, it could not forestall the encroaching ice. He felt colder than he could explain. His legs, his torso, his face and arms. It slowly was lost to the ice until at last the only warmth he could feel was a hand clutching at his own through a glove. 

Then, as even the last trace of grey glimmering light vanished, he felt a brush of heat against his cheek, and left the world, savoring the memory of the caress. 

 

* * *

 

It started on the ice. 

Laying there,with the cold eking into his body and staring down at _him_ , it began. He had clung to Thorin’s hand for as long as there was warmth left in it. Then, when he realized he was clutching fingers as icy and the snow around them, he slipped a hand beneath Thorin's tunic and stayed there while that heat vanished too. Skin he had never touched was going to be his last physical memory. The hair there was sticky with blood from the wound in his chest. Dirt and forming ice and goodness knows what else made it gritty, but he couldn't bring himself to move his hand at all.

It was all he had left, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t stop until he had this memorized. 

Friendship. 

Thorin had asked that they part in friendship.

What he would have asked for if Bilbo had given voice to what he wanted, he would never know. What would have come to pass had he finished speaking before Dwalin appeared, announcing the arrival of men in Dale, he would never know. What would have happened had Bilbo handed the Arkenstone to Thorin, had stayed by his side, had been with him in the battle the entire time? He had saved him once, he would have done it again, no matter the cost.

There was no small irony in his mind as his fingers so gently stroked over dirty chilled skin, and thought of the gift of hobbits. Thought of how the earth would part beneath his fingers, and when spring came, planted bulbs would emerge green and vibrant, stronger than the year before, live and growing and gorgeous. But Thorin was no flower, and would have grumbled at the comparison. There was nothing he could do to help, so he sat, and held onto the remnants of heat, and let himself pretend that the soft, peaceful expression was sleep not death. 

By the time Dwalin arrived, the princes half wrapped around each other and held up by the elf lass following just behind, there wasn't any heat left to savor. 

There was nothing left for him to hold to and hope with and let him delude himself into thinking that Thorin was alive. 

He would have stayed, holding and wishing, but for the arrival of the company. Their voices were jarring. Their presence was oppressive. 

Balin reached down to clap a comforting hand on his shoulder, and Bilbo twisted away to avoid the touch. He forced himself to move his hand from Thorin and rose, looking at no one, and saying nothing to the grieving dwarves. 

He was their king, their leader, their family. 

What was Bilbo in comparison?

Their keening, their weeping, honest and sincere as it was, grated on his ears. It felt more delicate than the agony in his chest. It felt so superficial that they were even capable of responding already. 

But he couldn't say so, he couldn't tell them that they had cared less for him than Bilbo did. 

It wasn’t true. 

And whatever he had felt for the dwarf had to be muted by the knowledge that Thorin had not felt the same. 

As he watched from a stone step, he saw Balin shake with tears, saw Fili pull away from his brother and the elf, forcing himself to stand on his good leg, trembling as he lifted his chin. Bilbo watched the company turn to him, one by one, cheeks still wet, but bowing to their new king. 

Bilbo sat there until Thorin's body had been carried down the hill, then sat there still. He sat in silence as the day faded, his mind returning over and over to the thought that he could still feel the tingle of remembered touch. That the stains of Thorin's blood, now dried and dark over his fingers was his last relic of someone who meant so much to him. That when his mind wandered he imagined that he could still feel that warmth. Thought that if he turned around, and hoped hard enough, Thorin would be standing there, woken from an exhaustive healing, and come to talk, to apologize once more. 

To hear what should have been said long ago.

The words were on his tongue, a truth, held back since Laketown. Ignored since long before then.

But there was no one behind him. 

Something in him crumpled there, alone on the icy step, and he began to dash away tears, again and again, pretending that he wasn't crying, grimacing and struggling to hold them at bay. Once he saw that there were shapes in the mist, someone approaching, he rose to stand, and shut down everything he felt, good and bad. He let the cold he felt beneath his feet slide up and up, erasing everything that hurt. By the time the elves stood before him, he was numb, inside and out. 

 

* * *

 

As a child he was taught the lore of Aule’s halls as all good dwarves were. He read the stories and the myths, and knew that as he passed from this world into the next, he would be greeted by kith and kin within a mountain so glorious as to make the finest accomplishments of Middle Earth seem cheap by comparison. 

He knew that there would be warmth and cheer and love there waiting for him. He knew it with all the endless confidence that a childhood lesson could have. 

He never saw that light. He never saw the great forges or the sacred fires. Never greeted his kin as they recounted tales of glory and sang new songs written for his deeds. 

Thorin was left in darkness and in cold. 

There was no form and no place there. He was nothing but his thoughts and after some time, he knew not how long, he found the explanation, as painful as it was. 

He had fallen to madness and greed. He had been willing to kill his beloved for the crime of protecting his life. He had done the unspeakable. There was no welcome waiting for him and there never would be. He was too far adrift to be loved by his maker. Thorin knew his sins had been grievous, would never have attempted to claim otherwise, but thought that felling Azog, that reclaiming the mountain, that preserving his people through despair and the long wandering would have been enough to earn him some small corner of peace in his eternity. 

He had been wrong. 

There was naught here but ice and cold. 

Naught to comfort him. 

Naught to console him. 

He would have wept had it been possible, but instead could only mourn in silence. 

This was a crueler fate than he had expected, but would not attempt to escape it. If Aulë felt this was the punishment his failing warranted, so be it. 

Without time, he did not know how long he drifted, but eventually, he felt something. 

Any feeling was so surreal that it was hard to not fear a yet darker fate. One of anguish and pain stretching on until the remaking of the world, where his guilt would be expiated in torment. 

There was a tingle in his hand, and Thorin, in a flash, became aware of himself as a body and a form. A piercing point of heat, almost painful, settled on the back of his hand, and he cradled it to his chest. 

Fear twisted at him, sharper this time. 

But he had no time to comprehend before a second painful warmth spread over his lips. 

Memory assaulted him, and he curled tight upon himself in the eternal endless darkness, believing this to be reflection of the touch he had stolen from Bilbo, of the kiss. An eternal reminder of what he had wasted in his greed and weakness. 

Without time, alone, Thorin lay in pain of his own making, whispering apologies and words of love to Bilbo, knowing they’d not be heard. He lay there as the ice pressed tight about him and movement became difficult. He lay there as those points of heat slowly grew. They were a bitter reminder, but they kept him warm, and they let his mind stay filled with pale echoes of the bond between himself and Bilbo. 

They hurt, and they grew slowly, ever larger points that suffused him in pain and sensation, and kept him from despair. 

Until he realized that he felt warm again. Truly warm, as he had not since his death. Warm. And the ice around him was no longer so close. It not longer pushed against him, fighting against the heat that had begun in his hand and lips. 

It was present, but new. 

He opened his eyes for the first time in too long, and was nearly blinded by the Arkenstone, sitting over his chest as he lay in a carved niche in the royal tombs. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ........I bet I know your answer on if you need more.......no, right? You're all set with this? I should mark it complete?


End file.
